


On the day I was born, the rain fell down

by lanyon



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Hook-Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not sure how to get beyond bathroom hook-ups with guys who don’t know who he is. </p><p>He thinks about Zimms and Eric Bittle’s soft adoration. </p><p>He feels guilty and that’s new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the day I was born, the rain fell down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idrilka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilka/gifts).



> +For **Idril** , who's amazing (and thanks for Cory).  
> +Title from AC/DC  
> + **Warnings** for internalised homophobia, hook-ups and Kent Parson.

**[GET TO KNOW]** **kent parson:**  
**cats or dogs?** cats. obviously  
**twitter or instagram?** instagram. how else would i share pictures of my cat? (yes, i know you can post pictures on twitter but it’s just not the same.)  
**blondes or brunettes?** i don’t like this question. brunettes.  
**winter or summer?** [laughs] i’m an ice hockey player. what do you think?  
**deep pan or thin crust?** thin crust, of course. lucali in brooklyn, i am just saying.  
**plain or plaid?** plaid. but no excessive layering. i'm not canadian.

♠

If Kent has any regrets about being captain of the Aces, and about Zimms being captain of the Falcons, it’s that they’ll probably never get to play together again. Not for anything meaningful. They get to showcase the patented Zimmermann-Parson no-look one-timer at the All-Star Game in Vegas and Kent gets to fling himself at Zimms on the ice afterwards and it’s probably just muscle memory that helps Zimms catch him. 

He’s happy for him. So goddamned happy. Kent will be the first to admit that he was a shit friend and a really shit secret boyfriend. He won’t admit it in public, of course, and he’ll just about admit it to himself and the one time he tried to admit it to Zimms, Zimms had a bit of a meltdown. 

They’re never gonna get the old band back together. 

But Zimms is happy and, in his way, Kent is happy for him. 

♠

His family think it’s hilarious that he has a cat. 

“Trust K to go for the only living creature who won’t love him back.”

“You have to get them when they’re kittens, Kenny, and they won’t know any better.”

“Why ever did you call it after yourself?” 

Kent loves his parents. Sometimes. 

♠

Kent is a big deal in hockey.

Hockey isn’t a big deal in Vegas. Not yet. His teammates are mostly young and all enthusiastic. Some of them are married and some of them are like Gabriel Charboneau, who was a third-round pick in the 2011 draft and is genuinely just happy to be here. 

“You okay, Cap?” he asks, after training.

Kent shrugs. “Comme ci, comme ça.”

Charbo grimaces. “Your accent is terrible. Who taught you French?” He claps Kent on the shoulder and he’s all soft brown curls and soft brown eyes and more penalty minutes than could be believed of a guy who looks so angelic. 

“You wanna grab dinner?”

“Another time, Charbo, yeah?” 

“Any time, Cap,” says Charbo and he bites his lower lip and it flares red and Kent tears his eyes away from Charbo’s mouth. 

 

♠

He meets a guy in a bar, not far from the strip, where the lights are so bright that his superstar shine is dim. The guy, Brad or Chad or something, is here with his college football team. He’s a draft prospect, apparently, and Kent could tell him a thing or two about that but he’s hiding his light under a bushel, or something. 

“I’m not gay,” says Brad or Chad or something. He droops. His whole body droops like a wilted orchid. “Okay, like, I am? But I can’t be. I mean. It’s 2015 and I can’t be a gay football player because who the fuck has it worked out for? Like. No one.” 

Kent snorts. “I hear you, buddy. I mean. I guess it worked for Jack Zimmermann.”

Zimms isn’t the golden boy but, fuck, he deserves to be. He deserves this one thing to work out for him. 

If Kent has any regrets about being gay, and about Zimms being out and gay, it’s that they’ll probably never get to be together again. And there’s the thing about Zimms’ boyfriend being basically perfect for him. Not much Kent can say about that without being a complete dick and Kent’s trying not to be a complete dick anymore.

“Who’s Jack Zimmermann?”

The thing is, the guy’s from Dallas. Surely he’s heard of hockey, right? Kent shakes his head and shakes his empty shot glass. He slides his phone out of his pocket and there are no texts and he’s not sure he was expecting anything.

“Wanna come back to my place?”

And Brad or Chad or something looks at him. He looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, up and down and lingering and there’s not even a spark of recognition in this bright neon place. 

“I don’t know, man. I gotta get back to my hotel.”

Kent quirks a smile and rubs his cheek. “Worth a shot, yeah?”

Brad or Chad or something looks at the bar, and at the television screen in the corner, and at the disinterested twenty-somethings whose luck has run out. 

Kent throws some cash on the bar and heads to the restroom. There’s a knock on the door, about thirty seconds later. 

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he says. 

“Uh. It’s Brandon.”

_Right._

Apparently Brandon took Kent’s call of nature as an invitation and, the thing is, it is a fucking invitation. Kent opens the door and Brandon squeezes in. The door’s locked, with someone’s fumbling fingers and Kent’s got soft hands but Brandon has big hands and he looms over Kent and picks him up and _fuck_. 

Brandon has big hands and long fingers and Kent comes prepared but he still urges Brandon to hurry to the burn, and the ache, and the pain and the gain.

Kent’s not, like, a goalie but he can do something like the splits and he’s got one foot braced against the sink and the other foot brace against the wall and Brandon’s putting his back into it and they’re panting into each other’s mouths. 

It’s quick and rough and it takes someone’s fumbling fingers two goes to flush the condoms away but the door is still on its hinges and Brandon is zipping up and looking down at the dirty tiled floor. 

Kent wants to grab him by the jaw and kiss him and tell him that he is a motherfucking draft prospect but he doesn’t. He unlocks the door and Brandon slips out and Kent looks at himself in the dirty mirror. 

 

He wrinkles his upper lip and takes solace in the fact that his Movember moustache is still better than Sidney Crosby’s. 

He’s not sure how to get beyond bathroom hook-ups with guys who don’t know who he is. 

He thinks about Zimms and Eric Bittle’s soft adoration. 

He thinks about Charbo and he feels guilty and that’s new. 

♠

Kent lets himself into his apartment. 

“C’mere, Kit,” he says and he is duly ignored in favour of the half-full food bowl. 

“Right,” he says. “Right.” 

He takes a photograph (hashtag starvingcat) and fills up Kit’s food bowl and the kitchen is filled with the sound of purring cat, humming refrigerator, whining air-conditioner. 

He scrolls through his Twitter feed, and likes pretty much anything posted by Eric Bittle and Cory Smith and Cory’s cute girlfriend.

There are jerseys in his closet, with ‘A’s and ‘C’s and stars and aces and Kit stalks into his bedroom and jumps up onto the bed, purring cat-food breath into Kent’s face.

“Glutton,” says Kent. 

He sets his phone on the nightstand, setting his alarm so that he’ll get up for optional skate. Kent is many things off the ice but skating has never been optional to him. 

A text comes through from Charbonneau ( _see you in the morning, Cap_ ) and Kent smiles without even thinking

 _Not if I see you first_. Maybe tomorrow will be a good time to try a new no-look one-timer. 

Maybe tomorrow, Kent can be brave.


End file.
